Like the rest of the world, I found out about Ahmed Mohamad, the 14 year old boy who built a clock, brought it to school to show his teacher and got arrested for it.
Down at the bottom of that article from the Dallas Morning News is a picture of his homemade clock. The picture is a little fuzzy but I can see a digital display, a circuit board, some hand soldered wires, a small transformer and underneath the mesh at the bottom of the case appears to be a metallic power supply. I'm also seeing a nine volt battery connector and an AC plug. Absolutely nothing more dangerous than a science kit.
The principle called the cops and arrested the kid. Want to see the letter the school wrote about the incident?
Simply put: I'm stunned. I remember taking phones apart and trying (badly) to fix them when I was his age. I remember getting a 500 in 1 electronic science kit for Christmas when I was a kid. Looking back I realize I could have been arrested to taking my kit to school for show and tell.
This whole thing doesn't pass the smell test.
He is a fucking kid! The principal saw a brown kid with 'a suspicious package'. Get a clue! Those three words are trying to cover your prejudice and ignorance, and they're doing a crappy job of it. In reading a couple of articles there was mention of the clock looking like a bomb from the movies. Uh, right. I thought I had an active imagination.
Right away other agencies stepped in to counter this craptastic episode. Offers began pouring in on Ahmed's brush with the law. Here's what has been offered to this boy:
Down at the bottom of that article from the Dallas Morning News is a picture of his homemade clock. The picture is a little fuzzy but I can see a digital display, a circuit board, some hand soldered wires, a small transformer and underneath the mesh at the bottom of the case appears to be a metallic power supply. I'm also seeing a nine volt battery connector and an AC plug. Absolutely nothing more dangerous than a science kit.
The principle called the cops and arrested the kid. Want to see the letter the school wrote about the incident?
Simply put: I'm stunned. I remember taking phones apart and trying (badly) to fix them when I was his age. I remember getting a 500 in 1 electronic science kit for Christmas when I was a kid. Looking back I realize I could have been arrested to taking my kit to school for show and tell.
This whole thing doesn't pass the smell test.
He is a fucking kid! The principal saw a brown kid with 'a suspicious package'. Get a clue! Those three words are trying to cover your prejudice and ignorance, and they're doing a crappy job of it. In reading a couple of articles there was mention of the clock looking like a bomb from the movies. Uh, right. I thought I had an active imagination.
Right away other agencies stepped in to counter this craptastic episode. Offers began pouring in on Ahmed's brush with the law. Here's what has been offered to this boy:
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| Makes me want to build a clock |
While these people may have their own agenda for offering all this stuff, I see the larger picture.
Here is an intelligent kid who is curious about the way things work in the world. The principal of MacArthur high school in Irving, Texas was doing a knee jerk reaction. I'm curious why the police didn't refuse to arrest the kid. Perhaps the principle was insisting on pressing charges. They all were reacting out of fear.
Here's the larger picture I mentioned:
The general population is tired of living in fear. Not that there is nothing to be afraid of, but allowing fear and uncertainty to control your life is no life at all.
Why did they inter Japanese Americans during World War II? Fear and ignorance.
In today's world replace the word Muslim with Japanese. Every day I see some blowhard with a microphone calling for all Muslims to be rounded up and/or executed.
Fear is a very powerful thing and these idiots are reacting out of hate and ignorance.
This is a big thing that took me a while to realize: I don't do fear.
While I detest Nazis, I don't go blaming Germans.
For the Navy Seal who double tapped Osama bin Laden, good shot soldier! But I have no hatred in my heart for my friends of different faiths. Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu.
This is just my two cents, but if you embrace friendship with people who live differently, aren't you making the world a better place? If you can't bring yourself to call someone with different color skin friend, can you at least try to respect them?
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